Tag Archives: Federal Circuit

By Peter R. Montecuollo and David G. Barker In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States has opened the door for patent owners to recover lost foreign profits under §§ 284 and 271(f)(2) of the Patent Act. Although the Court’s decision in WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp. represents a marked shift from the lost-foreign-profits calculus courts applied previously, it does not create an automatic right to recover lost foreign profits. Instead, the Court supplanted the Federal Circuit’s rigid prohibition against recovering lost foreign sales (see Power Integrations, Inc. v. Fairchild Semiconductor Int’l, Inc.) with a case-by-case Read More»

By Jacob C. Jones and David G. Barker In Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, the United States Supreme Court held today, in a 7-2 decision, that the inter partes review process under the America Invents Act (AIA), 35 U.S.C. § 100 et seq. (2011), does not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As we noted previously, inter partes review is a popular administrative proceeding where the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB; part of the United States Patent and Trademark Office) decides whether challenged patents are valid. As of March Read More»

By Rachael Peters Pugel and David G. Barker The Federal Circuit has reversed, for the second time, the much-followed copyright infringement case, Oracle America, Inc. v. Google LLC, which has been ongoing since 2010. Oracle filed suit alleging Google copied and used 37 packages of Oracle’s Java application programming interface (“API”), as well as the structure, sequence, and organization (“SSO”) of those API packages, in its Android smartphone platform. Google and Oracle’s predecessor, Sun, began discussing Google’s licensing of the Java platform for mobile devices in 2005. But the parties were unable to come to an agreement. Google then worked Read More»

By Robert A. Clarke and David G. Barker The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to consider whether damages for infringement of a U.S. patent include lost profits resulting from activities outside the U.S. In WesternGeco L.L.C., v. Ion Geophysical Corporation, the Federal Circuit affirmed a jury verdict that Ion infringed WesternGeco’s patent for a device used to search for oil and gas beneath the ocean floor, but the Federal Circuit reversed an award of damages for lost profits. The district court awarded lost profits from the use of the infringing devices abroad because WesternGeco would have been awarded the contracts Read More»